COLUMBUS, Ohio - A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday is suing Ohio Secretary of State over how state officials remove inactive voters from the rolls.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio on behalf of Ohio A. Phillip Randolph Institute and Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, argues people are removed from Ohio voter rolls in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also called the "Motor Voter" law.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said the state manages its voter rolls in compliance with both federal and state laws and has been complying a 2012 settlement requiring voter rolls to be scrutinized and maintained.

"This lawsuit is politically motivated, election-year politics, is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and opens the door for voter fraud in Ohio," Husted said in a statement.

Removing voters

The federal Motor Voter law prohibits states from removing voters for failing to vote. But it also allows states to establish a supplemental process for removing voters who have moved without updating their addresses.

In Ohio, the secretary of state's office sends a notice to registered voters who don't vote in elections for a period of time, generally two years, or change their address through the U.S. Postal Service asking them to confirm their registration.

If the voter does not respond to the notice or update voter registration information and does not vote or sign a petition within four years, the secretary of state can cancel the voter's registration.

For example, someone who did not vote in the 2011 election to repeal Senate Bill 5 nor the 2012 presidential election (primary or general) nor the 2013 primary election would have received a notice that year. If that voter doesn't update or confirm his or her address or does not vote in any election after that, including the 2016 presidential election, the registration would be canceled in 2017.

The suit, in the U.S. Southern District Court of Ohio, argues the state is wrong to assume voters are inactive because they have moved. They point to part of the Motor Voter law that requires "reliable second-hand information" to determine someone has moved.

The notice sent to inactive voters is more like a voter registration form, the complaint says, and is confusing to voters. As a result of a statewide purge last summer, thousands of Ohioans had to cast provisional ballots on Election Day and their votes were later not counted because they weren't registered, according to the complaint.

"In Cuyahoga County alone, approximately 40,000 individuals were unlawfully purged merely for choosing not to vote, and a disproportionate number came from low-income neighborhoods and communities of color," Andre Washington, the President of the Ohio APRI chapter, said in a news release.

The suit seeks a court order that Husted and boards of election immediately stop the supplemental process and restore all voter registrations that were canceled through the method.

Husted: Cleaning up rolls has improved elections

In 2011, several Ohio counties had more registered voters than eligible voters. Conservative watchdog groups Judicial Watch and True the Vote sued, arguing the state had not done its job in maintaining clean voter rolls.

The state settled, and Husted agreed to take several steps to cancel ineligible voter registrations, including matching data with national databases and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Since then, Husted said, nearly 465,000 deceased voters and 1.3 million duplicate registrations have been erased.

"Voter rolls with deceased voters and people who've moved out-of-state have long contributed to the problems of voter fraud, long lines and discarded ballots," Husted said Wednesday.

Previous secretaries of state dating back to Bob Taft in the 1990s used the same process to identify potentially ineligible voters, according to Husted's office. A 2009 directive from then secretary of state Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, instructed boards of election to cancel registrations if the voter did not update his or her registration or vote during the two election cycles following the notice.